During the Planning Process for Onshore Wind Power Development Is Conflicting

THE EFFECTS OF ‘GOING LOCAL’ DURING THE PLANNING PROCESS FOR

ONSHORE WIND POWER DEVELOPMENT

Dissertation in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF SCIENCE WITH A MAJOR IN WIND POWER PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Uppsala University Department of Earth Sciences, Campus Gotland

Wessel Verelzen

26/05/2021

THE EFFECTS OF ‘GOING LOCAL’ DURING THE PLANNING PROCESS FOR

ONSHORE WIND POWER DEVELOPMENT

Dissertation in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF SCIENCE WITH A MAJOR IN WIND POWER PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Uppsala University Department of Earth Sciences, Campus Gotland

Approved by:

Supervisor, Johanna Liljenfeldt

Examiner, Ola Eriksson

26/05/2021

ABSTRACT

In 2015 a Written Ministerial Statement (WMS) expanded the Localism Act in England which effectively gave neighbourhoods the power to decide on onshore wind power development in their area. By doing so, the planning process for such development ‘went local’. Literature on the effects of ‘going local’ during the planning process for onshore wind power development is conflicting. On the one hand, the involvement of local communities can lead to a higher level of trust and hence a higher success rate of development processes. On the other hand, it appears that people are often reluctant to accept wind power develompent in their own area even though they are in favour of the technology in general. This thesis explores the effects of ‘going local’, in the form of the WMS of 2015 in England, on onshore wind power development by investigating the local and neighbourhood plans, as well as the planning applications, in the administrative County of Cornwall with the help of qualitative document analysis and a thematic analysis framework provided by Braun & Clarke (2006). The results show that currently 4 out of the 213 Parish and Town Councils in the ceremonial county of Cornwall truly comply with the WMS, which means that onshore wind power development will only be possible in these areas. The development in these and all the other neighbourhoods is limited to small-scale clusters of turbines. In addition to this, the results show that there are four over-arching aspects that play a role in the decision-making process of neighbourhoods: i) benefits for the neighbourhood, ii) negative impacts on the neighbourhood area, iii) socio-political attitude, and iv) conditions set by the neighbourhoods or local authorities. The results show that, with the current planning policy framework in England, onshore wind power development will be limited to a significant extent in terms of size and possible locations. The conflicting literature on ‘going local’ reappears in the planning documents and a broad range of factors plays a role for all the neighbourhoods. The given weighting to the different factors is what determines a neighbourhood’s stance on onshore wind power development.

Keywords: onshore wind power development, neighbourhood planning, social acceptance, land-use planning ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my supervisor, Johanna Liljenfeldt, for her guidance and support throughout the course of this research. Thanks also go to my friends and colleagues for making my time in Visby at Uppsala University Campus Gotland a great experience. Finally, thanks to my family, and especially my mother and father, for their encouragement and ever-present support.

iii

NOMENCLATURE

UK United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland WMS Written Ministerial Statement NIMBY Not in My Backyard NPPF National Planning Policy Framework EU European Union USA United States of America LPA Local Planning Authority NSIP Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects QDA Qualitative Document Analysis AONB Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty CEDPD Climate Emergency Development Plan Document

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page ABSTRACT ...... i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... ii NOMENCLATURE ...... iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... iv LIST OF FIGURES ...... vi LIST OF TABLES ...... vii I. INTRODUCTION ...... 1 II. LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 4 II.I. The Negative Aspects of ‘Going Local’ During the Planning Process for Onshore Wind Power Development ...... 4

II.II. The Positive Aspects of ‘Going Local’ During the Planning Process for Onshore Wind Power Development ...... 6

II.III. Concluding Remarks on Literature Related to ‘Going Local’ ...... 7

III. CASE BACKGROUND ...... 9 III.I. Local and Neighbourhood Planning ...... 9

III.II. Local and Neighbourhood Planning and the inclusion of Onshore Wind Power Development ...... 11

III.III. Initial investigation of the Renewable Energy Planning Database and Background Information ...... 13

IV. METHODOLOGY ...... 16 IV.I. Case Study ...... 16

IV.II. Research Design ...... 27

V. RESULTS ...... 33 v

V.I. Local Plan and Additional Documents ...... 33

V.II. Neighbourhood Plans ...... 36

V.III. Neighbourhoods with a Positive Stance on Onshore Wind Power Development That Clearly Allocated Suitable Areas ...... 37

V.IV. Neighbourhoods with a Positive Stance on Onshore Wind Power Development That Did Not Allocate Suitable Areas ...... 40

V.V. Neighbourhoods with a Negative Stance on Onshore Wind Power Development ...... 41

V.VI. Over-arching aspects ...... 42

V.VII. Planning Applications for Onshore Wind Power Development submitted to Cornwall Council ...... 42

VI. DISCUSSION ...... 44 VI.I. Discussion of the Stance of the Planning Documents on Onshore Wind Power Development ...... 44

VI.II. Discussion of the Aspects That Play a Role in the Decision-Making Process ...... 44

VI.III. Discussion of the Planning Applications and Changes in Cornwall after Adoption of the CEDPD...... 48

VI.IV. Limitations...... 49

VII. CONCLUSION ...... 50 VII.I. Concluding Remarks ...... 50

VII.II. Future Implications and Research ...... 52

REFERENCES ...... 55 APPENDIX ...... 67

LIST OF FIGURES

Page Figure 1. The different steps in neighbourhood planning (Manuel & Crivellaro, 2020) ...... 10 Figure 2. Hierarchy of planning policy documents in England (Kirklees Council, 2021) ...... 11 Figure 3. Planning applications for onshore wind power development in England..... 14 Figure 4. Planning application for offshore wind power development in England ..... 14 Figure 5. Acceptance rate of energy sources in the UK between 1991 and 2017 (Harper et al., 2019) ...... 15 Figure 6. Sampling process steps (Taherdoost, 2016) ...... 18 Figure 7. Map of the mean wind speeds in the UK (DTU, 2019) ...... 19 Figure 8. Map of national grid lines in the UK (National Grid UK, 2021) ...... 20 Figure 9. Neighbourhood planning applications that have been received by councils (Planning Resource, 2021) ...... 20 Figure 10. Local Plan status in England per county (Savills Research, 2019) ...... 21 Figure 11. Neighbourhood planning activity map of Cornwall Council until July 2020 (Cornwall Council, 2020) ...... 22 Figure 12. The hierarchy of planning documents (Cornwall Council, 2016) ...... 23 Figure 13. Research design used for this research ...... 27 Figure 14. Proposed allocation of suitable areas for onshore wind power development in the Climate Emergency Development Plan Document (Cornwall Council, 2021d) ...... 35 Figure 15. Thematic map ...... 69

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LIST OF TABLES

Page Table 1. A comparison of the case study with other forms of inquiry with small amendments by Thomas (2021) (Hammersley & Gomm, 2000; Thomas, 2021) ...... 17 Table 2. Additions to the table of Hammersley & Gomm (2000) showing a comparison of the case study with other forms of inquiry (Thomas, 2021) .... 17 Table 3. The neighbourhoods in the ceremonial county of Cornwall with planning documents that discuss onshore wind power development...... 24 Table 4. Phases of thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) ...... 30 Table 5. The neighbourhoods in the ceremonial county of Cornwall, that mention wind in relation to onshore wind power development, and their stance on wind power...... 36 Table 6. The sub-themes that arose from the codes and their explanations...... 67 1

I. INTRODUCTION

The United Kingdom (UK) recently released new ambitious climate targets to comply with the Paris agreement (Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, 2020). To reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, an aim was set to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 68% compared to 1990 levels by the end of this decade. One of the ways to do so would be to invest in wind power development. Both on- and offshore the country has excellent wind conditions (European Environment Agency, 2009). However, especially onshore, the development of wind power in the UK is difficult (Harper et al., 2019). This is often related to local constraints (Bassi et al., 2012). People value natural landscapes, in which there is no place for the visual impacts of wind turbines, and they are willing to pay to preserve them (Bassi et al., 2012). In addition to this, noise, shadow, site access, and ecological impacts are frequently mentioned as general reasons for local opposition (Wolsink, 2000; Langer et al., 2016). On the 18th of July 2015, a new law may have made onshore wind power development even more difficult for, specifically, England. The government decided that the “local residents must have the final say over whether onshore wind farm applications get the go-ahead in the area” (Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government, 2015). To give more opportunity to residents to determine and shape wind power development in the area, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Greg Clark, amended a Written Ministerial Statement (WMS), HCWS42 (Clark, 2015). This WMS was included in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) of 2012, as well as in the new NPPF of 2018, and its slight amendments in 2019 (Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government, 2019). Different organizations, such as the Centre for Sustainable Energy, Friends of the Earth, and 10:10, have expressed their concerns that this new planning policy framework will make it difficult for new onshore wind energy schemes to come forward in the UK (Friends of the Earth, 2019; Stone, 2017). Stone (2017) carried out a survey that indicated that there is a lack of progress in the incorporation of the policy changes in local development plans (Stone, 2017). Effectively, an undeveloped local or neighbourhood plan means that onshore wind power development is impossible in this area, seeing as the WMS state that “suitable areas for wind energy development will need to have been allocated clearly in a Local or Neighbourhood plan” (Clark, 2015). Friends of the Earth (2019) continued the work of Stone (2017) by investigating 20 neighbourhoods and concluded that “worryingly” most of 2 the local and neighbourhood plans were not identifying or planning on identifying suitable areas for onshore wind power development (Friends of the Earth, 2019). From a research point of view, this planning policy change is an interesting case. The new NPPF empowered a level more local than municipalities in the form of neighbourhoods. This is unusual, seeing that in other countries the power and final say often lies at the national, regional, or municipal level (Bradley, 2015; Bradly et al., 2017). The decision-making for onshore wind power development on a more local level than ‘usual’, in the form of neighbourhood and local plans, will be referred to as ‘going local’ in the rest of the thesis. Literature on social acceptance and land-use planning which are associated with ‘going local’ have opposing thoughts. In social acceptance literature, researchers such as Bidwell (2013), Bohn & Lant (2009), and Rand & Hoen (2017) state that there is a difference in social acceptance of onshore wind power at a general and a local level. Despite broad public support for wind power in general, local wind power development is often challenged by vocal opposition in host communities. This is also named by researchers in the land-use planning research field. The ‘planning problem’, as discussed by Cowell (2007) and Ellis et al. (2009), states that developers must deal more and more with local opposition and are prone to a ‘discourse of objection’. Similar ideas are mentioned by Haggett (2004), who talks about the ‘attitude-behaviour’ gap, whereby there is a high level of support for onshore wind power development amongst the public, but a reluctance to accept actual wind power development in their own areas. The same phenomenon is described in the NIMBY concept, even though this concept is highly criticized for its oversimplification and limitations (Aitken, 2010a, Burningham et al., 2015; Ellis et al., 2007; Rygg, 2012; Wolsink, 2012). Despite this, ‘going local’ is also described as a positive factor in ensuring the success of onshore wind power development. Barry et al. (2008), Toke (2003) and Wolsink (2007) are examples of researchers that talk about the importance of open communication and feelings of equity and fairness. Aitken (2010a) concludes that to ensure acceptance of wind power projects, developers must earn the public’s trust. Hence, creating a sense of fairness around a project is essential to ensure a positive public opinion (Barry et al., 2008; Breukers & Wolsink, 2007; Upreti & Van der Horst, 2004; Wolsink, 2007). Frey et al. (2004, p. 381) contend that: “Procedures which are seen as fair are, for example, those that give individuals “voice”. Being given a say in issues concerning oneself generates procedural utility because it addresses innate needs for aspects of self-determination such as autonomy and competence; and, because it is an important signal about one’s standing in a group, it affects innate needs 3 of relatedness.” The WMS does exactly that, by giving the neighbourhoods the ‘voice’ and power to decide on onshore wind power development. The change in planning procedure in England is a real-life example of ‘going local’ by giving neighbourhoods a more important position in the planning procedure of onshore wind power development. The aim of this thesis was to explore the effects of ‘going local’, in the form of the WMS of 2015, during the planning process for onshore wind power development in England, as well as investigating what aspects play a role in the decision-making process of neighbourhoods or local authorities for onshore wind power development. To do so the following research questions were posed:

1. “How does the WMS, HCWS42, affect onshore wind power development in the administrative county of Cornwall?”, with the sub questions: a. “What is the stance of the local and neighbourhood planning documents in the administrative county of Cornwall on onshore wind power development?” b. “How do the local and neighbourhood planning documents in the administrative county of Cornwall comply with the requirements of the WMS, HCWS42, for potentially permitting onshore wind power development?” c. “How did the WMS, HCWS42, affect planning applications for onshore wind power development in the administrative county of Cornwall?” 2. “What aspects play a role in the decision-making process of neighbourhoods and local authorities in the administrative county of Cornwall for onshore wind power development in their areas?”.

To answer these research questions, local and neighbourhood planning documents, as well as planning applications for onshore wind power development, in the administrative county of Cornwall were analysed according to the guidelines of Qualitative Document Analysis (QDA) and the thematic analysis guidelines of Braun & Clarke (2006). The scope of the thesis was limited to the administrative county of Cornwall because of time and resource constraints. The thesis is structured as follows: first, the literature review can be found in Chapter II, following this Chapter III describes the case and its background, Chapter IV goes over the used methodology, and in Chapter V the results are displayed. The report finishes off with a discussion of the results in Chapter VI and an overall conclusion in Chapter VII.

II. LITERATURE REVIEW

II.I. The Negative Aspects of ‘Going Local’ During the Planning Process for Onshore Wind Power Development

The term neighbourhood planning includes an important topic for wind power development, i.e., planning. More than 25 years ago, researchers already mentioned the issues of planning within the development of renewable energy sources including wind energy (Hull, 1995; Mckenzie Hedger, 1995). Wind power poses a challenge to land-use planning, because of its characteristics and land demanding nature (Khan, 2003). There are three conflict dimensions that are central to most of the land-use planning cases associated with wind power: i) conflicts between public and private interest, ii) tensions between national (and global) interests and local interests, and iii) potential conflict between different goals of environmental protection and economic growth (Khan, 2003). For the first dimension, there is a central aim for the state and local authorities to protect public interests, and weight these against the rights and interests of private organizations (Fabos, 1985; Boverket, 2002). For wind power development this can show itself in the conflicting interests between a private landowner who wants to sell their property for wind power development and the public that wants to preserve the landscape. The second conflict dimension relates to cases, such as railways, roads, and waste treatment facilities, which may be highly desirable from a national point of view, while posing risks and disturbances to local communities and their environment (Boholm, 2000; Lidskog, 1998; Jay & Wood, 2002; Rabe, 1994). This also applies for wind power development, whereby the environmental benefits are seen on a national or global level, while the disturbances are strictly local. Finally, the third conflict dimension is ever-present seeing that environmental protection and economic growth are both important components of sustainable development (Gibbs et al., 2002). At a national level, wind power is mostly promoted for environmental motives, but it needs economic incentives to be implemented (Khan, 2003). At a local level, community benefits can support wind power, while the local environmental impacts are often seen as a threat (Khan, 2003). These conflict dimensions are part of what researchers call the ‘planning problem’, although the presence of this problem depends on one’s viewpoint (Cowell, 2007; Ellis et al., 2009). For the wind energy sector, as well as for nationally and internationally important climate objectives, the efficiency and time costs of planning are frustrating (BWEA, 2008). Moreover, the openness of the planning process, has opened the doors for more participation 5 from local interests (Ellis et al., 2009). This forces the developers to confront a wide range of political, policy, and technical debates, and to face up to local opposition (Cowell, 2007). The fact that developers are prone to such “discourse of objection” is often named as one of the key elements of the ‘planning problem’ (Ellis, 2004, p. 1549; Ellis et al., 2009). It was suggested by Ellis et al. (2009) that a further connection between social acceptance and the different aspects of the ‘planning problem’ is of importance. The acceptance and rejection of wind power at a local level tends to revolve “around issues related to local environmental quality, procedural justice, distributional justice, and trust, yet at a larger scale involves broader socio-political and market dimensions related to public approval, electricity prices, profitability for investors, and the ability to improve energy security” (Enevoldsen & Sovacool, 2016, pp. 179-180). The acceptance of the public towards wind power development is of importance for developers as it can either contribute to or impede the success of its implementation (Wolsink, 2012; Stigka et al., 2014). A distinction can be made between different forms of acceptance and rejection. Wolsink (2012) for example, distinguished social acceptance from public acceptance by stating that “social acceptance among all relevant actors in society is indeed much broader and is conceptually fully distinguished from mere public acceptance” (p. 84). This is supported by Aitken (2010a), who states that the understanding of local community involvement, in development decision-making processes on energy technological innovation, is limited due to its high complexities. The research on social acceptance developed from early conceptual papers such as Wolsink (2000) to an increasing diversity of case studies (Ellis & Ferraro, 2016). It increased significantly in the past years after Wüstenhagen et al. (2007) formalized “what is still nowadays generally called the field of research on the social acceptance of renewable energy innovation or renewable energy technologies” (Batel, 2020, p. 1; Ellis & Franco, 2016; Rand & Hoen, 2017). They explained that, according to them, there are three dimensions of social acceptance, namely socio-political, community, and market acceptance. These dimensions focus on various aspects of social acceptance from different points of view e.g., developers, residents, local authorities, public, and policy makers (Juan & Huisingh, 2015). It appears that there is a difference between the willingness to accept wind power at different levels (Bidwell, 2013; Bohn & Lant, 2009; Rand & Hoen, 2017). At a general level, there is broad public support for the development of renewable energy technologies (European Commission, 2019; Rand & Hoen, 2017). The Eurobarometer survey conducted in 2019 by the European commission, for example, shows that nine out of ten European citizens 6 agree that European Unions’s (EU) energy policies should prioritise ensuring affordable, clean, and secure energy for all European citizens (European Commission, 2019). The survey shows public acknowledgement of a shift to renewable energy sources to combat climate change (European Commission, 2019. Aside from the EU, Sharpton et al. (2020) showed that most of the people in the United States of America (USA) also support decarbonization via renewable energy sources. However, on a local level this support for wind power is different. Sharpton et al. (2020) for example showed that the support of Americans for decarbonization via renewable energy sources is mainly present with a guaranteed distance of 8 km from the respondents’ homes to wind or solar plants (Sharpton et al., 2020). Other researchers such as Bidwell (2013), Bohn & Lant (2009), and Rand & Hoen (2017) confirm the difference in social acceptance between local and general levels and state that despite broad public support for wind power in general, local wind power development is often challenged by vocal opposition in host communities. This difference also shows itself in some of the initial planning research that tried to incorporate social acceptance. This research “has tended to highlight apparent contradictions in public opinion, which are then explained in terms of the irrationality of the research subjects” (Ellis et al., 2009, pp. 526-527). Haggett (2004) talks about the ‘attitude-behaviour gap’ in the results of surveys, whereby there is a high level of support for wind power amongst the public, but a reluctance to accept actual wind power development in their own areas. Typically, this behaviour was explained as ‘NIMBYism’. However, this concept has often been critiqued in academic circles as being an oversimplifying concept full of weaknesses and inaccuracies. It is critiqued as being an unhelpful and even distracting or counter-productive way of describing opposition to wind power development (Aitken, 2010a; Burningham et al., 2015; Ellis et al., 2007; Rygg, 2012; Wolsink, 2012).

II.II. The Positive Aspects of ‘Going Local’ During the Planning Process for Onshore Wind Power Development

Contradicting ‘objection discourse’ and the ‘attitude-behaviour’ gap, ‘going local’ is also described as a potentially positive factor for wind power development. Wolsink (2007) and Eltham et al. (2008) comment that public attitude towards wind power in general and towards specific wind farms differ fundamentally. Feelings of equity and fairness appear to be determinants in this case, rather than selfishness or ignorance like the NIMBY concept states (Barry et al., 2008). Wolsink (2007) continues to state that communication plays an important 7 role in wind turbine schemes and mentions the need for collaboration by stating “as regards wind power implementation, neither specific nor ‘top–down’ imposed decision making is likely to be as effective as a collaborative approach. It is a perfect example of the need for open-ness in the process and the avoidance of technocratic and corporatist based elite decision making.” (p. 1204). Toke (2003) agrees on this and emphasizes the benefits of a more open and proactive dialogue between wind power developers and local communities. Bohn & Lant (2009) add to this by stating that ‘local investiture’ and ‘local control over siting’ within wind power development will lead to strong local and community support for wind power. The benefit of local economic returns and increasing property values have been confirmed by authors like Krauss (2010), Warren & McFayden (2010), and Wolsink & Breukers (2010). In general, it can be concluded that to ensure acceptance of wind power projects – or at least avoid opposition – developers must earn the public’s trust (Aitken, 2010a). Hence, creating a sense of fairness around a project is essential to ensure a positive public opinion (Barry et al., 2008; Breukers & Wolsink, 2007; Upreti & Van der Horst, 2004; Wolsink, 2007). However, the concepts of trust and fairness are complicated and the ways in which these can be facilitated are ambiguous (Aitken, 2010b). Frey et al. (2004, p. 381) contend that: “Procedures which are seen as fair are, for example, those that give individuals “voice”. Being given a say in issues concerning oneself generates procedural utility because it addresses innate needs for aspects of self-determination such as autonomy and competence; and, because it is an important signal about one’s standing in a group, it affects innate needs of relatedness.” This would mean that ‘going local’ in the planning process is of benefit for the development of onshore wind power projects. Here it is also important to note that “opposition should not be viewed as a means to overcome or mitigate opposition but instead as valuable opportunities to incorporate multiple viewpoints and knowledge resources” (Aitken, 2010a, p. 1840).

II.III. Concluding Remarks on Literature Related to ‘Going Local’

It is believed that there is room for more research in the academic field on the effects of neighbourhood planning on wind power development in England. Friends of the Earth (2019) and Stone (2017) attempted to dive into this topic on a small scale before, but their findings are non-academic and limited in their extent. The academic literature on ‘going local’ is contradicting. The case of England, where local communities are empowered during or even before the development process, can be both a positive and negative change from a wind 8 power development point of view. Local communities are included, which would result in a perception of more trust and fairness, which in turn could benefit the planning process of onshore wind power development. However, on a local level, people are in general more resilient against such development in their own areas. In the following parts of this thesis, further exploration into this difference is provided.

III. CASE BACKGROUND

III.I. Local and Neighbourhood Planning

In 2011, the UK government decided to change its planning policy framework and introduce neighbourhood planning in the Localism Act 2011 (Locality, 2021). The government states that neighbourhood planning gives communities the power “to produce a plan with real legal weight that directs development in your local area” (UK Government, 2021). It was presented as the power for neighbourhoods to align the imperatives of economic growth with the wishes and requirements for environmental and sustainable development (Bradley et al., 2017). Communities can choose where they want new homes, shops, and offices to be built, what they should look like, and whether new buildings should be granted planning permission (UK Government, 2021). To do so, they must first apply to become a neighbourhood area. Often a parish or town council decides on the application of neighbourhood areas. In areas without these councils, which is most of the urban areas, a neighbourhood forum must be created. This forum must have at least 21 members and is then able to create a neighbourhood plan. The forum can also decide on the size of the neighbourhood area. After a group is formed, they need to apply to the local authority to have their neighbourhood area and neighbourhood forum officially designated. (Locality, 2021) After becoming an official neighbourhood area, the neighbourhood can develop a neighbourhood plan. The development of neighbourhood plans is still in process. First the plans must be submitted for examination by the local authorities, as well as by an independent examiner. After this a referendum takes place. This referendum must be organised by the county council and every person that lives in the neighbourhood area and meets the eligibility criteria to vote in a local election for the area is entitled to vote in the referendum. If the majority is in favour of the draft neighbourhood plan, then the plan must be officially made and adopted by the local authority within eight weeks after the referendum. (Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government, 2020) The complete progress of neighbourhood planning is visualized in Figure 1 below (Manuel & Crivellaro, 2020). 10

Figure 1. The different steps in neighbourhood planning (Manuel & Crivellaro, 2020) In addition to neighbourhood plans there are local plans which are produced by the local planning authorities (LPAs). The local plans were introduced in 2012 with the publishment of the NPPF (Barton & Grimwood, 2019). The neighbourhood plans must be in line with the local plans and NPPF. Although “a draft neighbourhood plan or Order is not tested against the policies in an emerging local plan the reasoning and evidence informing the local plan process is likely to be relevant for the consideration of the basic conditions against which a neighbourhood plan is tested” (Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government, 2020). Hence, the qualifying body of the neighbourhood plans and the LPA should discuss and aim to agree on the relationship between the policies in the 1) neighbourhood plan, 2) local plan, and 3) adopted development plan, with appropriate regard to national policies (Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government, 2020). In case of conflict between qualified bodies of the neighbourhood plans and the LPAs, the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 states in section 38(5) that “the conflict must be resolved in favour of the policy which is contained in the last document to become part of the development plan” (Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act, 2004). To clarify, this means that if there is a conflict between the neighbourhood plan and local plan, the more recent plan takes precedence (Barton & Grimwood, 2019). After approval via a referendum, the newly adopted neighbourhood plans have the same legal status as the local plans. At this point, the neighbourhood plans become part of the statutory development plan. This statutory development plan is used by LPAs to decide on planning applications. Henceforth, planning applications are decided on in accordance with both the local and neighbourhood plans. The hierarchy of planning documents in England is visualized in Figure 2 below (Kirklees Council, 2021). 11

Figure 2. Hierarchy of planning policy documents in England (Kirklees Council, 2021)

III.II. Local and Neighbourhood Planning and the inclusion of Onshore Wind Power Development

In 2015, a WMS expanded the Localism Act by providing the neighbourhoods and LPAs the power to decide on onshore wind power development. Before this WMS, there were different regimes in place for wind power projects of under or above 50 MW. Above 50 MW the wind power projects were treated as Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs). This meant that development consent had to be granted by the Secretary of State under the rules provided in the Planning Act 2008. With the introduction of the Energy Act 2016 and the Infrastructure Planning (Onshore Wind Generation Stations) Order 2016, onshore wind farms of over 50 MW were removed from the NSIP regime and the decision- making powers were returned to the LPAs of the area. These were already the deciding authorities of whom planning permission had to be obtained for wind farms of under 50 MW. Since the introduction of the NPPF in 2012, the LPAs take their planning decisions based on this new planning procedure framework and by following the procedures set out in Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015 (SI 2015/595). (Smith, 2016) The NPPF was introduced to include people and communities and make the planning procedure in the UK easier accessible. Greg Clark stated in the foreword of the NPPF in 2012 12

“By replacing over a thousand pages of national policy with around fifty, written simply and clearly, we are allowing people and communities back into planning” (Greg Clark, 2012). Toke (2005) showed that in the years before the NPPF of 2012, decisions by planning authorities in England to refuse planning permission for wind power development, already were often closely associated with high levels of apprehension among people living in proximity of the projected farm. Different influential factors were shown, such as the national political environment concerning wind power, and the local perception of the economic impacts of the wind farm. Furthermore, it was stated that government planning policy is important to influence the judgements of Appeal Inspectors, who in turn influence the recommendations made by LPAs. The author continues by stating that developers are right to argue that the policy framework impels them to spend a significant amount of time on preparing environmental impact statements. However, it is also concluded that developers often do not engage with the local people, parish councils, and other bodies in the proximity of the projected wind farm. Encouraging pro-wind farm bodies in the area may prove to be useful. (Toke, 2005) In 2015, the government decided that not only LPAs but “local residents must have the final say over whether onshore wind farm applications get the go-ahead in the area” (Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government, 2015). The UK government stated that they acknowledge the contribution of onshore wind power to the electricity mix, but that projects are often imposed upon communities without consultation or public support (Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government, 2015). To give more opportunity to residents to determine and shape wind power development in the area, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Greg Clark, amended a Written Ministerial Statement (WMS), HCWS42 (Clark, 2015). This WMS states that planning permissions may only be granted for onshore wind power development if it meets the following two pre-conditions (Centre for sustainable energy, 2016): • The development site is an area that is identified as suitable for onshore wind power development in a Local or Neighbourhood plan. • Following consultation, it can be demonstrated that the planning impacts identified by affected local communities have been fully addressed and therefore the proposal has their backing. The statement adds: “in applying these new considerations, suitable areas for wind energy development will need to have been allocated clearly in a Local or Neighbourhood Plan. Maps showing the wind resource as favourable to wind turbines, or similar, will not be 13 sufficient” (Clark, 2015). The introduction of the WMS henceforth included neighbourhoods as part of the LPAs and expanded the government’s wish to include local communities in planning procedures. In the revised NPPF of 2019 a footnote was added to the WMS of 2015 stating that “49 Except for applications for the repowering of existing wind turbines, a proposed wind energy development involving one or more turbines should not be considered acceptable unless it is in an area identified as suitable for wind energy development in the development plan; and, following consultation, it can be demonstrated that the planning impacts identified by the affected local community have been fully addressed and the proposal has their backing.” (Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government, 2019, p. 45). New in this footnote is the exception for repowering of existing wind turbines. Citizens seldom can participate in decision-making processes, and it is rare for statutory power to be designed in a way that public participants are in power rather than public officials (Bradley, 2015). The neighbourhood planning method of England is “unusual in that a tailor-made set of statutory powers was devised and offered to communities to give them distinct rights within the development planning framework” (Bradley et al., 2017). Bradley (2018) concludes that the new abilities for planners to prioritize location over logics of development points to a more egalitarian approach to the construction of planning knowledge. The approach of giving power to neighbourhoods in planning decision-making for onshore wind power development is different from other countries. In the Netherlands, planning decisions for wind power development are made at either the national, provincial, or municipal level (Wet ruimtelijke ordening, 2008). In Germany, this is done at the level of either the federal state, the district, or the municipality (Pahl-Weber & Henckel, 2008; Schmidt & Buehler, 2007). And in Sweden, this is done at the national, regional, or municipal level (Boverket, 2018). This makes England an outstanding case, which is interesting for researchers in relation to studying the effects of ‘going local’ during the planning process for onshore wind power.

III.III. Initial investigation of the Renewable Energy Planning Database and Background Information

To assess any changes in planning applications since the introduction of the WMS, the Renewable Energy Planning Database of the BEIS (Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy) was investigated (Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, 14

2021). As can be seen in Figure 3 below the number of planning applications in England drastically decreased since 2015. Since the WMS only 15 planning applications were submitted in England.

Figure 3. Planning applications for onshore wind power development in England (own depiction based on Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, 2021) When looking at offshore wind planning applications, one can see in Figure 4 below that this drastic change after 2015 is not present. This indicates that there was no other factor introduced in 2015 against wind power in England in general.

Figure 4. Planning application for offshore wind power development in England (own depiction based on Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, 2021) 15

However, there was a potentially influencing factor for specifically onshore wind power that may have impacted this drastic change, namely a cut in subsidies. The government decided to put an end to renewables obligations, whereby onshore wind farms are given subsidies, in April 2016, which was year earlier than initially planned (Wintor & Vaughan, 2015). Political wrangling led to a later change, whereby it took until May 12, 2016, to fully close renewable obligations for new installed capacity (Ofgem, 2021). There was still the option of a grace period for certain developers, to safeguard investments which were classified as sufficiently mature on June 18, 2015 (Ofgem, 2021). This change will most likely also have partly influenced the planning applications for onshore wind farms in England. However, the start of the drastic decrease is visible before May 2016 already. Before the introduction of the WMS in 2015, wind power already had to deal with high numbers of refused or abandoned planning submissions. Figure 5 below shows that, until 2017, 52% of the historic onshore wind projects in the UK had been refused permission or were abandoned by the developer (Harper et al., 2019). This is the highest rate for any energy source in the UK, as is also visualized in Figure 5 below (Harper et al., 2019). This points in the direction of a potentially difficult planning process for onshore wind power, which may be partly caused by the WMS of 2015.

Figure 5. Acceptance rate of energy sources in the UK between 1991 and 2017 (Harper et al., 2019)

IV. METHODOLOGY

IV.I. Case Study

This thesis aims to explore the effects of ‘going local’ in the form of the WMS of 2015 in England, on the planning process for onshore wind power development. To do so, a case study was used. A general definition of such a study was given by Feagin et al. (1991) who defined it as “an in-depth, multifaceted investigation, using qualitative research methods, of a single social phenomenon” (p. 2). Gerring (2004) defined it slightly more specific as “an intensive study of a single unit with an aim to generalize across a larger set of units” (p. 341). Gerring (2004) also named several limitations and points of discussion for researchers opting to use case studies in their work. Seven characteristic strengths and weaknesses of case studies were mentioned. Applicable for this research are that according to Gerring (2004) “case studies are generally more useful (1) when inferences are descriptive rather than causal ... (6) when the strategy of research is exploratory, rather than confirmatory, and (7) when useful variance is available for only a single unit or a small number of units.” (p. 352). Seeing as this thesis aims to explore the effects of ‘going local’ in the form of the WMS of 2015, which empowers single units to decide on neighbourhood planning, a case study seems to be an appropriate method to use. In addition to this, case studies lend themselves to theoretical generation and generalization (Feagin et al., 1991). Stake (2005) argued that “a case study is not a methodological choice but a choice of what is to be studied ... By whatever methods, we choose to study the case. We could study it analytically or holistically, entirely by repeated measures or hermeneutically, organically or culturally, and by mixed methods – but we concentrate, at least for the time being, on the case.” (p. 443). Hammersley & Gomm (2000) and the adaptions of Thomas (2021) resulted in Table 1 and Table 2 below which shows some differences between case studies and other forms of inquiry. 17

Table 1. A comparison of the case study with other forms of inquiry with small amendments by Thomas (2021) (Hammersley & Gomm, 2000; Thomas, 2021)

Table 2. Additions to the table of Hammersley & Gomm (2000) showing a comparison of the case study with other forms of inquiry (Thomas, 2021)

In this thesis the effects of ‘going local’ during the planning process for onshore wind power development are investigated. This means that a single case is investigated. The data is collected in England, seeing as it was assumed that the WMS of 2015 in England is a form of ‘going local’. Within England one county was investigated in more detail due to time and resource constraints. This connects to the second row of Table 1. The aim of the thesis is to ‘explore’, which relates to “naturally occurring cases where the aim is not to control variables” (Thomas, 2021, p. 11). The methods and data sources that were used to do so will be discussed in the following parts of this chapter. Finally, the term ‘exploring’ can be connected to “looking at potential relationships and processes” (Thomas, 2021, p.11). As was argued before, the WMS of 2015 in England is assumed to be a form of ‘going local’ and hence England was taken as a case to explore the effects of ‘going local’ during the planning process. Within England, it was opted to choose one county to investigate in detail due to time and resource constraints. To select this county and a sampling process was used. The sampling process is visualized in Figure 6 below (Taherdoost, 2016).

Figure 6. Sampling process steps (Taherdoost, 2016) The first step is determining the target population. In this research the target population are all the neighbourhood and local plans in England. Next, a sampling frame was selected. A sampling frame is “a list of the actual cases from which the sample will be drawn” (Taherdoost, 2016, p. 20). In this research these are all the neighbourhood and local plans in England divided per county. Following this, a sampling technique was chosen. It was opted to go for non-probability sampling, seeing that this is often associated with qualitative research (Taherdoost, 2016). It also tends to focus on smaller samples, and it has the intention of examining a real-life phenomenon, instead of making statistical inferences in relation to the wider population (Yin, 2003). Once again, this research aims to ‘explore’ which relates to examining a real-life phenomenon of, in this case, ‘going local’. Within the non-probability sampling techniques, the purposive or judgemental sampling was chosen. This sampling method helps to select cases deliberatively to provide important information that cannot be obtained from every other case (Maxwell, 1996; Etikan & Bala, 2017). It is the ideal sampling method for explorative research but has the weakness that it does not allow generalization and that it is subjective (Malhotra & Birks, 2006). Due to limited progress in the neighbourhood planning process, it was opted to go for this method to ensure a county with sufficient planning documents could be chosen. For the following step an adequate sample size must be determined to avoid sampling errors or biases (Taherdoost, 2016). In England there are 27 administrative counties. For this research one of them was chosen. 19

The administrative county that was selected as the sample, in the form of one overarching county with all its neighbourhood and local plans, was Cornwall. Cornwall was selected based on favourable conditions from a wind power development point of view, as well as its established local plan and relatively high number of developed neighbourhood plans. These are factors are visualized in the figures below. First, Figure 7 below shows high wind speeds in Cornwall, and Figure 8 shows an established grid condition between Cornwall and the rest of England, which together indicate favourable conditions for onshore wind power development.

Figure 7. Map of the mean wind speeds in the UK, the arrow points at Cornwall (DTU, 2019) 20

Figure 8. Map of national grid lines in the UK (National Grid UK, 2021) Next, Figure 9 below shows the progress of neighbourhood planning in England, whereby a deeper shade of red resembles more neighbourhood planning applications that have been received by a council. It shows a high number of developed neighbourhood plans in Cornwall.

Figure 9. Neighbourhood planning applications that have been received by councils (Planning Resource, 2021) 21

Finally, Figure 10 below shows the adoption of local plans according to the NPPF until 2019 (Savills Research, 2019). It shows that the local authority in Cornwall, which is Cornwall Council, has adopted an NPPF-compliant plan.

Figure 10. Local Plan status in England per county (Savills Research, 2019) To conclude, the area of Cornwell appears to be interesting for onshore wind power development. The wind resource in Cornwell is one of the highest in any European country with an average wind speed of 6.5 m/s at a 10-meter height (Cornwall Council, 2014). In addition to this, the county already had 9 operational commercial wind farms in 2014 and still released a document to guide new onshore wind power developers in the area (Cornwall Council, 2014). Moreover, since the release of the WMS in 2015 only 15 planning applications for onshore wind power development were submitted in England. Of these 15 planning applications, Cornwall Council (the LPA of Cornwall county) was the planning authority that received the most applications, with a total number of 3 planning applications (Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, 2021). This makes Cornwall an area with potential support from the local authorities for onshore wind power development. An interesting thing to notice here, is that in the 5 years before the WMS, 15 planning applications were submitted to Cornwall Council for onshore wind power development, while in the same period after the WMS there were only 3 submissions. This will be further 22 explored in section V.VII. Planning Applications for Onshore Wind Power Development submitted to Cornwall Council. Within the administrative county of Cornwall, there are 213 Parish and Town Councils of which 137 are currently engaged in different stages of the neighbourhood planning process. So far, 125 neighbourhood areas have been assigned, which includes 5 cluster neighbourhood plans covering 17 parishes. Till this day, 26th of May 2021, 56 draft neighbourhood plans have been officially submitted (Cornwall Council, 2021a). Figure 11 below shows the neighbourhood planning activity in Cornwall until July 2020. (Cornwall Council, 2020)

Figure 11. Neighbourhood planning activity map of Cornwall Council until July 2020 (Cornwall Council, 2020) The local plan of Cornwall Council was implemented in November 2016 (Cornwall Council, 2016). Hence, neighbourhood plans that have been adopted before this date, may be overruled by this local plan. In addition to the local plan, following the declaration of a Climate Emergency by Cornwall Council in 2019, Cornwall Council has been producing a Climate Emergency planning document, which is named the Climate Emergency Development Plan Document (CEDPD). This document should be read in conjunction with the draft policies map and the local plan of 2016. The document underwent public consultation until the 16th of April 2021 under Regulation 19 of the planning act. Now in May 2021 the comments will be implemented in the document before it is submitted for examination (Cornwall Council, 2021b). The Council recognized the lack of identified suitable areas for onshore wind power development, which is further discussed in the 23 following parts of the thesis and started working on this document to resolve this issue and identify suitable broad areas for onshore wind power develompent at a strategic level. An interesting thing to notice is that in the local plan, Cornwall Council showed in Figure 12 below that their local plan is higher in the hierarchy than neighbourhood plans, while Figure 2 in section III.I. Local and Neighbourhood Planning show that the neighbourhood and local plans have the same legal status. Despite this difference, it was also described in section III.I. Local and Neighbourhood Planning that the neighbourhood plan must take the local plan in consideration during its developing process. Because of this, in the analysis of the documents the local and neighbourhood plans were analysed in union.

Figure 12. The hierarchy of planning documents (Cornwall Council, 2016) In this research local and neighbourhood plans were considered when they were adopted or were near to being adopted since the introduction of the WMS in 2015. Both adopted and pre-adoption plans were included to investigate any progress that is currently being made in the implementation of the new policy. It was assumed that even though pre- adoption plans may change after examination or a referendum, the general stance on a matter like onshore wind power development should not change drastically. This resulted in a total sample of 56 plans. 24

After this, these plans were sorted on whether the term ‘wind’ was mentioned in the context of onshore wind power development. If this was not mentioned, it was clear that the document was not complying with the WMS requirement which states that “suitable areas for wind energy development will need to have been allocated clearly in a Local or Neighbourhood Plan” (Clark, 2015). They may have mentioned something in Supplementary Planning Documents and renewable energy studies, but these were not considered seeing as they do not comply to the WMS requirement. In a case whereby wind power was not mentioned, the local plan would decide on the stance on wind power development. This first step filtered out half of the plans, resulting in a total sample of 28 neighbourhood plans that stated something on wind power. These neighbourhoods are listed in Table 3. The neighbourhoods in the ceremonial county of Cornwall with planning documents that discuss onshore wind power development. below.

Table 3. The neighbourhoods in the ceremonial county of Cornwall with planning documents that discuss onshore wind power development.

Neighbourhood Source Applying Neighbourhood Date of authority development adoption plan status Bude-Stratton Bude-Stratton Town Town Adopted 21/Jun/17 Council (2016) Council

Calstock Calstock Parish Council Parish Submitted draft (2020) Council waiting for examination Chacewater Chacewater Parish NDP Parish Adopted 05/Nov/19 Steering Group (2018) Council Crowan Crowan Parish NDP Parish Adopted 18/Sep/19 Steering Group (2019) Council Feock Feock Parish Council Parish Adopted 18/Apr/18 (2017) Council Fowey Fowey Parish Council Town Adopted 11/Mar/20 (2019) Council Gwennap Gwennap parish Council Parish Adopted 12/Mar/20 (2019) Council 25

Gwinear- Gwinear-Gwithian Parish Parish Adopted 26/Oct/17 Gwithian Council (2016) Council Lanlivery Lanlivery Parish Council Parish Adopted 19/Feb/19 (2018) Council Lanner Lanner Parish Council Parish Adopted 11/Mar/19 (2018) Council Lanreath Lanreath Parish Council Parish Adopted 28/Feb/18 (2017) Council

Lanteglos by Lanteglos-by-Fowey Parish Examined but Fowey NDP Steering Group Council waiting for (2019) referendum

Linkinhorne Linkinhorne Parish Parish Submitted draft Council (2021) Council waiting for examination

Menheniot Menheniot Parish Parish Submitted draft Neighbourhood Council waiting for Development Plan examination Steering Group (2021) Mevagissey Mevagissey Parish Parish Adopted 09/Jul/18 Council (2018) Council

Penryn Penryn Town Council Town Examined but (2020) Council waiting for referendum Polperro and Polperro and Lansallos Community Adopted 22/Feb/19 Lansallos Parish Council (2018) Council Quethiock Quethiock Parish Parish Adopted 09/Dec/15 Council (2015) Council Rame Rame peninsula Parish Adopted 28/Jun/17 Peninsula Neighbourhood Plan Councils Parish Cluster Steering jointly Group (2016) Roche Roche Parish Council Parish Adopted 28/Jun/17 (2016) Council 26

Roseland Roseland Neighbourhood Parish Adopted 09/Dec/15 Peninsula Development Plan Councils Steering Group (2015) Jointly South Hill South Hill Parish Council Parish Adopted 22/Feb/18 (2017) Council

St Austell Bay St Austell Bay Parish NP Parish Submitted draft Strategic Group (2020) Council waiting for examination St Agnes St Agnes Parish NDP Parish Adopted 13/Sep/19 Steering Group (2018) Council

St Cleer St Cleer Parish Parish Examined but Neighbourhood Plan Council waiting for Steering Group (2020) referendum

St Enoder St Enoder Parish Council Parish Examined but (2018) Council waiting for referendum St Minver St Minver Highlands and Parish Adopted 28/Jun/17 Parishes Lowlands Parish Councils Councils (2015) Jointly Withiel Withiel Parish Council Parish Adopted 04/Jun/18 (2016) Council

This means that in total 29 planning documents, including the local plan of Cornwall Council with its additional documents and the neighbourhood planning documents, shown in Table 3, were further analysed. Assessing the response rate which is the last step in the sampling process of Taherdoost (2016) was not directly applicable in this research. But the availability of neighbourhood plans does say something about the process of neighbourhood planning. The local plan leaves it up to neighbourhoods to come up with suitable areas for onshore wind power development, which is one of the requirements of the WMS, so if this is not done in the neighbourhood plan (which is the case when there is no neighbourhood plan), permission for onshore wind power development cannot be granted. This will be further discussed in Chapter VI. 27

IV.II. Research Design

Figure 13 below shows the general outline of the methodology that was used for this thesis. A qualitative research design was used to investigate the posed research questions. The research design focused on local and neighbourhood planning documents, as well as planning applications, in the administrative county of Cornwall.

Figure 13. Research design used for this research Qualitative document analysis (QDA) was used as the qualitative research method to assess i) the stance of neighbourhoods on onshore wind power development, and ii) whether a plan was identifying suitable areas for onshore wind power development. In addition to this, QDA was used to analyse the planning applications in the administrative county of Cornwall. The QDA method is used to analyse documents in an analytical and systematic manner to 28 assess the treatment of themes or issues (Altheide et al., 2008; Le Gouais & Wach, 2013). QDA is often used in political science to facilitate unbiased and reliable analysis of written policies (Altheide, 1996; Wesley, 2011). In an QDA, the meaning and implication of texts is analysed, which distinguishes it from quantitative word analysis (Le Gouais & Wach, 2013). It also differs from other political science research methods by its specific focus on written text, while the others often analyse spoken or written discourses (Le Gouais & Wach, 2013). The emphasis of the method is “on discovery and description ... rather than on mere quantity or numerical relationships between two or more variables, which is emphasized in traditional quantitative content analysis” (Altheide et al., 2008, p. 128). Traditionally for an QDA it is stated that categories and variable initially guide the study, but that it is expected that more will arise throughout the study (Altheide et al., 2008). The assessment of the stance of neighbourhoods and the Council on onshore wind power development was ultimately done by interpretation of the researcher. If ‘wind’ in relation to wind power was not mentioned in the planning document, then a negative stance was assumed, seeing as the WMS requires that “suitable areas for wind energy development will need to have been allocated clearly in a Local or Neighbourhood Plan” (Clark, 2015). If ‘wind’ was mentioned in relation to wind power but with a negative attitude, a negative stance on onshore wind power development was appointed. If ‘wind’ was mentioned and the attitude was positive, there were two options: either it was mentioned that the neighbourhood or council was open for proposals for onshore wind power development, but they did not allocate suitable areas themselves, or it was mentioned that they were supportive of onshore wind power development and they also allocated suitable areas for such development. As part of the QDA, these initial analyses were followed by a thematic analysis to explore aspects within the local and neighbourhood plans that influence their decision- making. This method is flexible, as it is not tied to a particular epistemology or theoretical perspective (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The goal is to “identify themes, i.e., patterns in the data that are important or interesting, and use these themes to address the research or say something about an issue” (Maguire & Delahunt, 2017, p. 3353). It can be restricted to reporting themes but can also go further than this by interpreting various aspects of the research topic (Boyatzis, 1998). Namey et al. (2008) stated that “Thematic Analysis moves beyond counting explicit words or phrases and focuses on identifying and describing both implicit and explicit ideas. Codes developed for ideas or themes are then applied or linked to raw data as summary markers for later analysis, which may include comparing the relative 29 frequencies of themes or topics within a data set, looking for code cooccurrence, or graphically displaying code relationships.” (p.138) Thematic analysis is considered as the most appropriate method for studies that try to explore and discover by using interpretations (Alhojailan, 2012). It gives the opportunity to understand the potential of any issue more widely (Marks & Yedley, 2004). It was opted to use this method over something like Grounded Theory analysis, because the latter is used more in relation to data that is undetermined before the start of the study (Alhojailan, 2012). Different approaches to thematic analysis can cause confusion about the nature of a thematic analysis and how it differs from qualitative content analysis (Alhojailan, 2012; Boyatzis, 1998; Javadi & Zarea, 2016; Vaismoradi et al., 2013). In this thesis the 6-step framework by Braun & Clarke (2006) is followed, because it is arguably the most influential approach in the social sciences (Maguire & Delahunt, 2017). Before the analysis of the data begins, there are several choices that must be considered and discussed (Braun & Clarke, 2006). First, it must be decided what a theme is. For this, flexibility is recommended by Braun & Clarke (2006) who state that rigid rules do not work. Furthermore, the quantifiable presence of a theme is not necessarily the determinant for its ‘keyness’. Its relation to the research question is what determines this. The main point of importance is that you classify themes in a consistent way within a project. For this research it was left up to the interpretation of the researcher to decide when something was considered a theme in relation to the topic of this research ‘onshore wind power development’. In case there were factors that stood on themselves and were not abundant or explicit enough to be categorized as a specific theme, they were categorized under the theme ‘miscellaneous’. Secondly, it was decided to try and provide a rich thematic description of the entire set. This way a rich overall description can be provided on the topic, even though some depth and complexity will be lost. This analysis method is recommended by Braun & Clarke (2006) for investigations in under-researched areas or in research where the views of participants on the topic are unknown, which applies for this research topic. Thirdly, themes can be identified in two primary ways: inductive / ‘bottom up’ as in Frith & Gleeson (2004) or theoretical / ‘top down’ as in Boyatzis (1998) (Braun & Clarke, 2006). For this research it was opted to go for the inductive / ‘bottom up’ approach because the research is explorative and aims to produce a rich overall description of the data. In an inductive approach the themes are strongly linked to the data themselves (Patton, 1990). It is a process of coding data without trying to fit it in a pre-determined coding frame. In this sense, 30 it is data driven. However, it must be noted that it is impossible for a researcher to totally free themselves of their epistemological commitments (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The analysis will be enhanced by not engaging with literature in the early stages, seeing as this can influence the outcomes of the analysis. In the later steps, one of course should be relating back to literature. Fourthly, Braun & Clark (2006) distinguish between two themes: semantic and latent. At the semantic level the meaning of the data is analysed at the surface level, without looking beyond what is said or written (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The latent level “... starts to identify or examine the underlying ideas, assumptions, and conceptualisations – and ideologies – that are theorised as shaping or informing the sematic content of the data” (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 84). Due to the limited comparative research on neighbourhood planning, this research will conduct a thematic analysis at the semantic level. This level does still involve some attempt at interpretating data, by theorizing the significance of the patterns and their broader meanings and implications (Patton, 1990). Finally, there are different research epistemologies. In this research an essentialist / realistic approach was used. This allows for theorizing “motives, experience, and meaning in a straightforward way, because a simple, largely unidirectional relationship is assumed between meaning and experience and language” (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p.85). This approach connects well to the semantic level of the thematic analysis. Now that these decisions have been made, a more detailed description of the undertaken steps can be provided. The 6-step framework of Braun & Clarke (2006) was used. The steps of this framework are displayed in Table 4 below. Hereby, it is important to note that these phases are guidelines and not strict rules. One should apply these in a flexible manner to fit the research question and data set (Patton, 1990). Table 4. Phases of thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006)

Phase 1. In this phase it is important to actively read through the data set. In this case, the local and neighbourhood planning documents were studied actively before conducting the thematic analysis, during the sampling process. Phase 2. This phase involves the production of initial codes. These codes identify a feature of the data that appears to be interesting. This ‘feature of the data’ refers to “the most basic segment, or element, of the raw data or information that can be assessed in a meaningful way regarding the phenomenon” (Boyatzis, 1998, p. 63). Phase 3. This phase begins after all the data is coded and collated. It involves a re- focus from codes to overarching themes by sorting the different codes into potential themes. Some initial codes may form main themes, while others form sub-themes. Codes that cannot find a collective theme may be classified as ‘miscellaneous. (Braun & Clarke, 2006) Phase 4. After devising a set of candidate themes, this phase involves the refinement of these themes. Some candidate themes may have to be dropped, while others can be merged, or should be broken down. This phase involves two different levels of refining of themes. The first level involves reviewing at the level of the coded extracts. Once the candidate themes capture the contours of the coded data – once one has a candidate ‘thematic map’ – one can move on to the second level. This level involves a similar process but in relation to the entire data set. Here one can review the thematic map that is created in level one. If it works, one moves on to phase 5. (Braun & Clarke, 2006) Phase 5. This phase begins when one has a satisfactory thematic map of the data. Then, one continues to define and refine the themes and analyse the data within them. At the end of this phase, one should be able to clearly define what the themes are and what they are not. Phase 6. The final phase of the thematic analysis includes the final analysis and write- up of the report. The analysis narrative should go beyond describing the data and should try to make an argument based on the research question. (Braun & Clarke, 2006) An important thing to notice for thematic analysis is that it involves a constant moving back and forth between the data set and the analysis. Writing in this case is an integral part of analysis and not something one does after the analysis, like in statistical analyses. (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The sub themes, themes, and thematic map that resulted from the analysis of the planning documents can be found in the 32

APPENDIX. To conclude, the QDA and thematic analysis research methods were used to explore the local and neighbourhood plans, as well as the planning applications, in the ceremonial county of Cornwell. This was done to assess the stance of different neighbourhoods on onshore wind power development which relates back to the effects of ‘going local’ in the form of the WMS, their compliance with the WMS, and themes that play a role during their decision-making. In addition to this, the planning applications were analysed to see if ‘going local’ in the form of the WMS impacted these applications.

V. RESULTS

V.I. Local Plan and Additional Documents

First, the local plan was investigated. The planning document of Cornwall Council starts by stating that, “Our emphasis will be on supporting ... to exploit the opportunity in Cornwall of ... wind” (Cornwall Council, 2016, p. 33). It also mentions that “regard will be given to the wider benefits of providing energy from renewable sources” (Cornwall Council, 2016, p. 54). This shows a positive stance on wind power motivated by the benefits of renewable energy sources. However, several factors are mentioned that must be taken in consideration during the planning process for onshore wind power development. Examples of this are that it is stated that, “In the case of wind ... development, landscape character is seen as a key driver in determining the appropriate scale and density of the development” (p. 54), that, "In Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs) wind and solar development should generally be very small in order that the natural beauty of these areas may be conserved" (p. 54), and that the importance to “avoid, or adequately mitigate shadow flicker, noise and adverse impact on air traffic operations, radar and air navigational installations; and do not have an overshadowing or overbearing effect on nearby habitations” (p. 54) is stressed (Cornwall Council, 2016). In addition to this, the need to “maximise the use of the available resource” (p. 54) is mentioned, as well as that “wind... performance relies on an uninterrupted flow of energy to the energy generation installation. Careful management is necessary to ensure that new development do not harm the operation of existing renewable energy installations by, for example, significantly interrupting access to the wind resource” (p. 55) (Cornwall Council, 2016). Another important thing found in the Cornwall Council local plan is that “The council will not be allocating sites for the development of wind turbines in this plan or a site allocations DPD. This Plan (incl. Policy 14) represents the policy framework against which planning applications will be considered, should they come forward as a result of a neighbourhood plan allocation” (Cornwall Council, 2016, p. 55). This has important implications for the neighbourhoods as the WMS stated that “suitable areas for wind energy development will need to have been allocated clearly in a Local or Neighbourhood Plan” (Clark, 2015). The local plan of Cornwall Council states that it will not be allocating any sites for onshore wind power development, even though there is support for wind power generation in general. Hence, it is up to the neighbourhoods to allocate these areas. If this does not happen, no permission can be given for onshore wind power development in these areas. 34

The CEDPD that is currently under development adds several interesting points to the local plan. First it states that “A policies map has been developed and is included with the DPD as part of this consultation. It shows areas where policies may have specific geographical impacts or need to be allocated (for things such as wind turbines) or for safeguarding sites to make sure they are used for the right things” (Cornwall Council, 2021c, p. 5). Instead of leaving it up to neighbourhoods to allocate suitable areas, the Council now states that “Wind energy proposals will be permitted where they: a) Are located in a ‘broad suitable area’ identified on the Policies Map or are for the repowering of an existing wind turbine/farm” (Cornwall Council, 2021c, p. 40). Aside from this change, the same factors of importance are mentioned that were mentioned in the local plan of 2016, like for example the need to “Avoid or adequately mitigate shadow, flicker, noise and adverse impact on air traffic operations, radar and air navigational installations;” (Cornwall Council, 2021c, p. 40), and that “Demonstrate that, following consultation, the planning impacts identified by the affected local community have been fully addressed by the proposal” (Cornwall Council, 2021c, p. 40). The Policies Map that is referred to in the CEDPD is an interactive website. The website states that the “National Planning Policy states that wind turbines cannot be granted planning permission unless they are within an area identified in a Development Plan (Local Plan, DPD or Neighbourhood Plan) or replacements for existing turbines. Therefore, if we are to support this technology, we must identify areas.” (Cornwall Council, 2021d). The CEDPD, as well as the Policies Mapping website, “identifies areas that are proposed to be taken forward as ‘suitable for wind energy’.” (Cornwall Council, 2021d). The proposed allocated areas for onshore wind power development by the Council can be found in Figure 14 below. 35

Figure 14. Proposed allocation of suitable areas for onshore wind power development in the Climate Emergency Development Plan Document (Cornwall Council, 2021d) Figure 14 above shows a significant number of areas that are being proposed for allocation as suitable areas for onshore wind power development. These “areas are based on a landscape sensitivity assessment to onshore wind carried out by LUC ... In addition to the ‘areas suitable for wind energy’, various other constraints as identified through a report by the University of Exeter are shown on this interactive mapping. These constraints will need to be considered when assessing planning applications for wind turbines.” (Cornwall Council, 2021d). The LUC is a planning, impact assessment, landscape design, ecology, and geospatial consultancy in the UK. The CEDPD is not yet adopted but may have interesting consequences for the current situation of local planning and onshore wind power development in Cornwall. A final interesting points it that Cornwall Council stated in relation to the footnote in the NPPF of 2019, which states, “49 Except for applications for the repowering of existing wind turbines, a proposed wind energy development involving one or more turbines should not be considered acceptable unless it is in an area identified as suitable for wind energy development in the development plan; and, following consultation, it can be demonstrated 36 that the planning impacts identified by the affected local community have been fully addressed and the proposal has their backing.”, that “This also allows wind turbines to be permitted without being identified in the development plan and the interpretation of this allowance can be reasonably broad as established in subsequent case law.” (R. Lacey, 2021, personal communication, 13 May).

V.II. Neighbourhood Plans

Next, the 28 neighbourhood plans, that mention ‘wind’ in relation to onshore wind power development in their reports, were investigated. First, they were analysed on their stance on onshore wind power development and whether suitable areas were allocated for such development. This resulted in Table 5 below. Table 5. The neighbourhoods in the ceremonial county of Cornwall, that mention wind in relation to onshore wind power development, and their stance on wind power.

Neighbourhood Stance on wind power Clearly allocated area for wind turbines included? Bude Stratton Negative No Calstock Positive Yes Chacewater Positive Yes Crowan Negative No Feock Positive No Fowey Negative No Gwennap Negative No Gwinear-Gwithian Positive Yes Lanlivery Positive No Lanner Negative No Lanreath Positive No Lanteglos by Fowey Negative No Linkinhorne Negative No Menheniot Positive No Mevagissey Negative No Penryn Positive No Polperro and Lansallos Negative No Quethiock Negative No 37

Rame Peninsula Positive No Roche Positive Yes Roseland Peninsula Positive No South Hill Negative No St Austell Bay Negative No St Agnes Negative No St Cleer Positive No St Enoder Negative No St Minver Parishes Positive No Withiel Negative No

It appears that 4 of these neighbourhood plans clearly allocated an area for onshore wind power development like the WMS requires. Hence, at this moment in time only these 4 neighbourhoods are neighbourhoods that are suitable for onshore wind power development. An example of this is Roche Parish Council (2016) who stated, “Wind turbines will be supported in the plan area (Fig 1.1) where impacts identified by the affected local community have been fully addressed and therefore the proposal has their backing” (p. 28). Another 9 had a positive stance on such development but did not comply with the requirement of the NPPF that suitable areas must be clearly allocated. An example of this is Feock Parish Council (2017) who stated that “The Plan seeks to support small-scale community and domestic renewable energy proposals to aid sustainable energy production and solar, wave/tidal and wind energy production that respect local character” (p. 42). The other 15 neighbourhood plans had a negative stance on onshore wind power development. An example of this is Quethiock Parish Council (2015) who stated, “As to wind turbines, the majority in the Parish felt that no schemes were appropriate” (p. 8). Next, the documents were investigated in more detail to see what aspects play a role in their decision-making.

V.III. Neighbourhoods with a Positive Stance on Onshore Wind Power Development That Clearly Allocated Suitable Areas

The first neighbourhoods that will be discussed in more detail are the ones that had a positive stance on onshore wind power development and allocated suitable areas for such development. There are 4 neighbourhoods that are part of this group. One of the benefits of wind power development that is mentioned by a minority of these neighbourhoods is that “the 38 renewable energy industry contributes significantly to the economy and employment opportunities in the county” (Calstock Parish Council, 2020, p. 83). For most of the neighbourhoods their support for onshore wind power development was founded by an ambition to contribute to ‘sustainability’ without specifying this further. For example, Calstock Parish Council (2020) states their intention “to help tackle the climate crisis by supporting renewable energy” (p. 83), and Chacewater Parish NDP Steering Group (2018) states that “88% of respondents to the Autumn 2017 Survey Questionnaire agreed that the Parish should aim to become, as far as is possible, energy self-sufficient, utilising sustainable methods of electricity generation. 7% disagreed with this ambition” (p. 50). This last quote is connected to an important deciding factor that has been mentioned in some of the 4 neighbourhoods, namely public demand. Their argumentation for any made decisions is often related to direct local community consultation. For example, Roche Parish Council (2016) states that “Wind turbines will be supported in the plan area (Fig 1.1) where impacts identified by the affected local community have been fully addressed and therefore the proposal has their backing” (p. 28), and Chacewater Parish NDP Steering Group (2018) mentions that the “majority (63%) of Chacewater residents support wind energy development and agree that, where practicable and appropriately sited, they would encourage the use of wind turbines. 33% still disagree” (p.51). Even though these 4 neighbourhoods have allocated suitable areas for onshore wind power development, this does not mean that this comes without implications. Several factors are mentioned that must be considered during the development process. The main one is that the majority of the 4 neighbourhoods only supports small scale development. Calstock Parish Council (2020) states that “wind farms will not be supported unless they are individual wind turbines or small clusters of up to 5 turbines of small size” (p. 84), and Gwinear-Gwithian Parish Council (2016) states that “Within the setting of the AONB and Heritage Coast, turbines should be no higher than 25m to tip height” (p. 21). This presence of AONB (Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty) areas, as well as Landscape Character Areas has also been mentioned by most of the other neighbourhoods. For example, Calstock Parish Council (2020) states that “Within the AONB wind turbines will not be supported unless very exceptional circumstances apply” (p. 84). The next aspect that arose from all the 4 neighbourhoods is the need to protect the landscape character and mitigate visual impacts. This is related to the protection of the AONB areas, but less specifically. This can relate to visual impacts and landscape character disturbance in all possible ways, while the AONB aspect is more related to the protection of 39 those areas which includes visual impacts, but also other potential negative impacts, such as noise. Roche Parish Council (2016) states that “More specifically, the setting of Roche Rock is particularly sensitive and proposals that impact on its setting would not be acceptable in any event” (p. 28), and Gwinear-Gwithian Parish Council (2016) mentions the need to “ensure that future wind turbines will be in line with the landscape character area and are appropriate and proportionate to its location” (p. 21). Following this it appears that all neighbourhoods name the amenities of their residents as important factors in the planning process. Chacewater Parish NDP Steering Group (2018) has the intention “to open up the opportunity for ... wind energy development ... whilst protecting residential amenity” (p. 50), and Gwinear-Gwithian Parish Council (2016) aims to “ensure that the potential harmful impacts on the following are appropriately avoided or mitigated: (a) Residential amenity through noise generation, shadow flicker or overbearing visual impact” (p. 21). Other impacts that must be considered and mitigated as mentioned by the neighbourhoods are public safety and the public rights of way, impacts on nature and biodiversity, impacts on the (historic) character or on heritage sites, cumulative impacts, and impacts on productive farmland. Aside from the mitigation of these negative impacts, there are certain other demands from these neighbourhoods before they will permit onshore wind power development. The first one that is mentioned is the need to have a decommissioning plan. Gwinear-Gwithian Parish Council (2016) states that “Once the development reaches the end of its operational life it must be removed and the site remediated to its previous quality for future agricultural activity.” (p. 21), and Calstock Parish Council (2020) mentions that “proposals will be expected to include provisions under S106 or similarly binding arrangements to ensure that at the end of its operational life turbines will be removed and the site remediated to its previous quality for agricultural use” (p. 84). Secondly, there is a demand for community benefits from the development. The Localism Act from 2011 allows LPAs to take financial benefits into account in cases where there is a direct connection between the intended use of the funds and the development. There are always material and socio-economic community benefits that arise from developments such as improved infrastructure and job creation, but these are considered as a normal part of the planning process. The majority of the 4 neighbourhoods ‘demands’ that onshore wind developments offer the local communities a range of benefits. Chacewater Parish NDP Steering Group (2018) for example states that “any development proposals for renewable 40 energy schemes in Chacewater Parish will be supported, where they are either: integrated so that the energy generated can be supplied directly to domestic, business and other buildings in the Parish, thereby reducing energy consumption; are fully or partly owned by Chacewater residents, businesses or community associations. This can be demonstrated by evidence that the development is fully or partly owned through an appropriate community energy enterprise” (p. 50). The way in which community benefits should be arranged differs per neighbourhood, but often the principals in the ‘Community Benefits from Onshore Wind Power Developments: Best Practice Guidance for England’ by Department of Energy & Climate Change (2014) is mentioned as a guidance for the negotiation. Overall, five direct examples of community benefits have been mentioned in the different documents: 1) supplying of generating electricity to domestic, business, and other buildings in the neighbourhood to reduce energy consumption, 2) full or partly ownership by residents, business, or community associations, 3) community benefit fund, 4) fuel poverty mitigation scheme, and 5) reduced electricity tariff rate. To conclude, all these 4 neighbourhoods were clearly aware of the WMS of 2015 related to onshore wind power development and they decided to allocate suitable areas for such development. They did, however, note down several factors that must be considered and, where necessary, mitigated.

V.IV. Neighbourhoods with a Positive Stance on Onshore Wind Power Development That Did Not Allocate Suitable Areas

The next group of neighbourhoods are the ones with a positive stance on onshore wind power development but that did not clearly allocate suitable areas for such development. This is a group of 9 neighbourhoods. Once again, all these neighbourhoods only accept small scale development. For example, Lanlivery Parish Council (2018) states that “54% of respondents would consider a small wind turbine and would look at these on a case by case basis” (p. 14), and Roseland Neighbourhood Development Plan Steering Group (2015) concludes that they will be “accepting much of the strategy in the emerging Local Plan (and SPD) but limiting installation to 11.1 m microturbines of the type with permitted development rights outside an AONB.” (p. 57). Aside from this, most of the mentioned factors in section V.III. before also apply to the neighbourhoods that are discussed here. For example, Penryn stated “proposals for individual and community scale energy ... wind turbines ... will be supported subject to these 41 criteria: the siting and scale of the proposed development is appropriate to its setting and position in the wider landscape; and the proposed development does not create an unacceptable impact on the amenities of local residents; and the proposed development does not have an unacceptable impact on a feature of natural or biodiversity importance” (p. 67), Menheniot states that the “Renewable energy industry contributes significantly to the economy and job opportunities in the county” (p. 59), and Lanreath stated that "This does not include the following small-scale renewable energy developments including wind turbines which will be considered on their merits and against Policy in this Plan and the wider development plan: Micro-generation schemes included within the curtilage of a domestic property and providing energy for that property; Community renewable energy schemes and other small-scale schemes where energy is used on the premises, if the generating capacity in each case is not more than 10kW" (p. 30). The main difference between the neighbourhoods in this section and in section V.III. is that the ones in this section do not allocate suitable areas themselves. They just state they are open for development proposals for onshore wind power development schemes in the area. This does not comply with the WMS that requires clearly allocated suitable areas for onshore wind power development. For developers this can be both a positive and negative aspect. It can make it more difficult for developers to understand what they are working with and where they would be allowed to develop. However, it also leaves them with more room to propose the options that are best suited for themselves. Finally, there is a new aspect mentioned here by one of the neighbourhoods that influences their decision-making, which is tourism. St Minver Highlands and Lowlands Parish Councils (2015) states that “Industrial Scale Wind Turbines and Industrial Scale Solar Farms that have an overbearing influence on ... tourism will be resisted” (p. 41). To conclude, the difference between positive neighbourhoods that do or do not allocate suitable areas for onshore wind power development is relatively small. There are some minor differences that relate to specific cases per neighbourhood but there is no significant overall difference in the mentioned themes between these types of neighbourhoods.

V.V. Neighbourhoods with a Negative Stance on Onshore Wind Power Development

Finally, the 15 neighbourhoods with a negative stance on onshore wind power development were further investigated. For these neighbourhoods, once again, the same aspects arose, that were discussed before, but the weighing of the themes was different. For 42 example, Bude-Stratton Town Council (2016) states that "Development proposals for community owned renewable energy schemes (excluding wind turbines) will be supported, provided they do not have an unacceptable impact on the environment or residential amenity. Community owned schemes (excluding wind turbines) which benefit the local community by contributing to local energy self-sufficiency and to a community fund will be supported and encouraged." (p. 20). So, they once again value the community benefits and are willing to invest in renewable energy sources but believe that wind turbines have unacceptable impacts on the environment and residential amenities within their neighbourhood. The same goes for Gwennap parish Council (2019) who mention that "While supportive of alternative energy generation, some residents are opposed to wind power in this location and consider that other alternative energy sources are more appropriate for Gwennap" (p.45), for Fowey Parish Council (2019) who rather supports Solar PV development, or Quethiock Parish Council (2015) who only stated that "As to wind turbines, the majority in the Parish felt that no schemes were appropriate" (p. 8). Linkinhorne Parish Council (2021) summarizes the case for most of the neighbourhoods with a negative stance on onshore wind power development by stating that "Whilst the community supports sustainable energy technology, serious concerns remain about many aspects of installation, particularly of wind turbines and solar panels such as loss of productive farmland and visual, noise and other negative impacts on the character of the landscape or of villages and hamlets" (p. 22).

V.VI. Over-arching aspects

After analysing the local and neighbourhood plans it appeared that there are several aspects or factors that play a role in the decision-making process of neighbourhoods on onshore wind power development. These can be connected to four overarching aspects, which are i) benefits for the neighbourhood, ii) negative impacts on the neighbourhood area, iii) socio-political attitude, and iv) conditions set by the neighbourhoods or local authorities.

V.VII. Planning Applications for Onshore Wind Power Development submitted to Cornwall Council

Aside from the planning documents, the planning applications in the 5 year before and after the WMS were investigated. It appears that before the WMS in a period of 5 years there were 15 planning applications for onshore wind power development submitted to Cornwall Council. The number of turbines in these planning applications ranged from 1 to 16 turbines. 43

It must be stated here that 10 of these planning applications were either refused, withdrawn, expired, or abandoned. The planning application that was accepted with the highest number of turbines was one for 5 turbines with a turbine capacity of 2.5 MW each. After the WMS there were only 3 planning applications in the same period of 5 years to Cornwall Council. The first one was submitted in October 2018 and is currently operational. This planning application was a resubmission for one 2.3 MW turbine, which was granted permission two months later. It consists of the repowering of a turbine in the St Erme neighbourhood area. The neighbourhood plan of this area did not mention wind and hence did not comply with the WMS. As was shown before, the local plan leaves it up to neighbourhoods to allocate suitable areas for onshore wind power development. Hence, purely based on the WMS requirement that states that suitable areas must be clearly allocated in a local or neighbourhood plan, this planning application could not have been granted permission. However, the addition of the footnote in the NPPF of 2019, which excludes repowering from these requirements, may have played a role in the permitting process of this planning application. The second planning application was submitted in November 2018 and was granted permission in September 2019. This was an application for one 0.9 MW turbine in the Camelford neighbourhood. Camelford’s neighbourhood plan was examined but is still awaiting its referendum before it will be adopted. The plan does not mention wind in their document and hence no onshore wind power development would be possible in this neighbourhood after its adoption according to the WMS requirement. The final planning application was submitted in November 2020 and is currently awaiting a response. It applied for permission of the development of one 4.1 MW, 135-meter- high turbine in the St Mewan neighbourhood. This neighbourhood has an adopted neighbourhood plan wherein wind is not mentioned. Hence, according to the WMS, no onshore wind power development can be permitted in this area.

VI. DISCUSSION

VI.I. Discussion of the Stance of the Planning Documents on Onshore Wind Power Development

In this part of the report the results are discussed. First, the planning documents. In Cornwall County there are 213 Parish and Town Councils, which has so far resulted in 125 designated Neighbourhood Areas. Of these neighbourhoods, only 56 have submitted draft proposals. This indicates a lack of progress in neighbourhood planning, which corresponds with the preliminary small-scale investigation conducted by Stone (2017). For the neighbourhoods without neighbourhood plans, the local plan decides on onshore wind power development. The local plan has a positive stance on onshore wind power development but leaves it up to the neighbourhoods to allocate suitable sites for such development. Hence, according to the WMS direct permission cannot be granted for any onshore wind power development in these neighbourhoods. The general rejection of onshore wind power development by the neighbourhoods that was concluded from this investigation was also noticed by Cornwall Council. They are willing to act on it with the CEDPD that is currently being developed. This document, in contradiction to the local plan of 2016, does allocate suitable areas in the county. However, this plan first must get through the examination and referendum processes. The CEDPD changes the process of ‘going local’ and forces neighbourhoods to strictly oppose onshore wind power development instead of just not referring to it or allocating suitable areas. After investigating the content of the submitted neighbourhood plans, the potential for onshore wind power development in the ceremonial county of Cornwall appears to be limited. Four plans have truly complied with the NPPF which states that permission for onshore wind power development can only be granted if suitable areas have clearly been allocated in a local or neighbourhood plan. This connects to the investigation of Friends of The Earth (2019), who concluded that most of their investigated plans reject onshore wind power development in their areas.

VI.II. Discussion of the Aspects That Play a Role in the Decision-Making Process

Next, the aspects that were related to the decision-making processes of the neighbourhoods were further researched. It appeared that there are several themes that are in play in the different local and neighbourhood plans and that they can be brought down to four overarching aspects. 45

The first overarching aspect relates to the benefits of onshore wind power development for the neighbourhoods. The related factors that arose from the neighbourhood plans are economic benefits and employment opportunities, as well as demanded community benefits. Some of the neighbourhoods mention that investment in new renewable energy sources will create jobs for the neighbourhood and attract investments from outsiders in their area. In addition to this, most of the neighbourhoods demand some form of community benefits to be included for the neighbourhood. The ways in which this can be done differs per neighbourhood. Economic returns and increasing property values were mentioned in the literature as ways to increase local and community support for wind power (Krauss, 2010; Warren & McFayden, 2010; Wolsink & Breukers, 2010). The arising of this theme from the planning documents is hence a confirmation of this literature. Economic benefits were also mentioned as part of one of the conflict dimensions by Khan (2003), which is discussed later in this chapter. The second overarching aspect, resulting from a relatively high number of factors, relates to the negative impacts of onshore wind power development on the neighbourhood area. Most of these impacts have also been mentioned either directly or indirectly by literature as possible barriers for onshore wind power development. For example, Bassi et al. (2012) described the value of natural landscapes for people and their willingness to pay to preserve these, and Wolsink (2000) and Langer et al. (2016) mentioned noise, shadow, site access, and ecological impacts as reasons for local opposition against onshore wind power development. The abundance of factors in this overarching aspect relates to the wide range of political, policy, and technical debates that were described by Cowell (2007) and Ellis et al. (2009) as part of the ‘planning problem. The negative stance of most of the neighbourhoods on onshore wind power development relates to the local opposition that was mentioned to increase with increasing openness of the planning process (Cowell, 2007; Ellis et al., 2009). Neighbourhood planning opens the planning process for more (local) people, which increases the ‘planning problem’ for potential developers in England. The third overarching aspect relates to the socio-political attitudes of the neighbourhoods. It appeared from most of the investigated planning documents that the neighbourhoods in general support the ambitions of the UK government to consider sustainability in the planning processes and to invest in renewable and low-carbon energy sources, such as wind power. This corresponds with the statements made by planning and social acceptance literature, which states that in general people support wind power development (Bidwell, 2013; Bohn & Lant, 2009; Rand & Hoen, 2017; Sharpton et al., 2020). 46

However, when it comes down to their final decision-making on onshore wind power development only 4 out of the current 56 developed neighbourhood plans comply with the WMS. They see onshore wind power as an option to contribute to these ambitions but are not always sure that this type of energy source is the optimal source for them to support. They may prefer renewable energy sources with lower or other types of impacts on the neighbourhood area. This difference between willingness to accept wind power at different levels was also stated in the literature (Bidwell, 2013; Bohn & Lant, 2009; Ellis et al., 2009; Hagget, 2004; Rand & Hoen, 2017). The decision-making of the neighbourhoods was often based on public surveys and questionnaires. The planning documents related back to public demands, like in Quethiock Parish Council (2015) where the only statement on wind power is that "As to wind turbines, the majority in the Parish felt that no schemes were appropriate" (p. 8). This direct inclusion of residents in the planning process by the ‘neighbourhood planning groups’ is exactly what the UK government was aiming for when they introduced neighbourhood planning (UK Government, 2021). It also makes sense seeing that the neighbourhood plans must pass a referendum before they can be adopted. Including the voters of this referendum in the planning stage of the document is hence highly advised. The process of ‘going local’ and including local communities in the planning process was conflictingly described in the literature. It was described by some researchers as a potential benefit for successful development of onshore wind power development. It appears now that for most of the neighbourhoods this inclusion is not enough to result in positive stances on such development in their areas. This might be because the process of neighbourhood planning does not completely comply with the ideas of ‘going local’ that were discussed by researchers such as Aitken (2010a), Frey et al. (2004), and Wolsink (2007) as beneficial for the successful development of onshore wind power. Aitken (2010a) for example stated that “opposition should not be viewed as a means to overcome or mitigate opposition but instead as valuable opportunities to incorporate multiple viewpoints and knowledge resources” (p. 1840). The process of neighbourhood planning does indeed include a potential source of opposition in the form of local communities. It also gives a ‘voice’ to them and helps to take their viewpoints and knowledge resources in consideration. However, this specific process is limited to the residents and excludes other stakeholders. Direct positive voices on onshore wind power development, for example in the form of wind power developers, are not included in the making of the neighbourhood planning documents. Hence, the way that neighbourhood planning ‘goes local’ in this case, is almost more of an 47 exclusive process again rather than an inclusive process. Wolsink (2007) stated “as regards wind power implementation, neither specific nor ‘top–down’ imposed decision making is likely to be as effective as a collaborative approach. It is a perfect example of the need for open-ness in the process and the avoidance of technocratic and corporatist based elite decision making.” (p. 1204). It appears that neighbourhood planning may indeed be a way to steer to more bottom-up decision-making instead of top-down corporatist based elite decision- making, but it is still exclusive and not a collaborative approach. Hence, the literature, that was used to argue for the positive benefits of ‘going local’, is not fully applicable on this case. The prescribed benefits of ‘going local’ by literature relate more to inclusive processes, while neighbourhood planning appears to be lacking in its inclusive collaborative approach. The final overarching aspect focusses on conditions set by the neighbourhoods or local authorities. The demand for a decommissioning plan and the rejection of large-scale wind farms relate back to the negative impacts that were described in the second over-arching aspect, although they are indirect in for this fourth one. Without an appropriate decommissioning plan, the threat arises that the developer will just leave the area after the turbines reach their lifetime, which will leave the neighbourhood with the negative impacts of structures that are not in use anymore. Large-scale wind farms have even more negative impacts than small clusters, and hence enhance the negative impacts that were described as part of the second-overarching aspect that influences the decision-making of neighbourhoods. Apparently, the size of large-scale wind farms increases the negative impacts to a point where none of the neighbourhoods are supportive of such development anymore. To conclude, most findings can be related back to the land demanding nature of wind power and the conflict dimensions that were described by Khan (2003). A farmer may want to invest in a wind turbine but the impacts of such a structure may conflict with the amenities of nearby residents, which relates to the conflict dimension between public and private interest. This does not mean that the farmers would never be permitted to construct a wind turbine, as was shown by for example Lanlivery Parish Council (2018), who stated that “proposals for small scale ... wind energy developments will be permitted provided the size and scale are appropriate to the character of the area and all the criteria in Cornwall Local Plan Policy 14 are met” (p. 36). The second conflict dimension described by Khan (2003) relates to the tension between national and local interests. The UK government aims to reduce its carbon emissions and wants to invest in renewable energy sources, but the neighbourhoods must deal with the negative impacts in their areas. It appears that most of the neighbourhoods are unwilling to cope with this trade-off for (especially large-scale) onshore wind power 48 development in their area. Finally, the debate between economic growth and environmental protection appears to be leaning more towards environmental protection than economic growth for the neighbourhoods. Even though Khan (2003) states that economic benefits can be an important drive for communities, and this was also mentioned in a minority of the plans, the environmental impacts of onshore wind power development were weighed as more important in most of the plans. A difficulty here is the exact definition of the term ‘environmental protection’. If this just relates to impacts on nature and biodiversity the tension in this final conflict dimension is less one-sided, than if it also includes things like landscape character and amenities of residents. In the latter case, most of the neighbourhoods clearly see environmental impacts as more important than the currently offered local economic benefits.

VI.III. Discussion of the Planning Applications and Changes in Cornwall after Adoption of the CEDPD

Here the planning applications are discussed. It appeared that the number of planning applications significantly reduced after the introduction of the WMS in 2015, and that the proposed size of the wind power projects also was reduced to single turbines. During the analysis of the 3 submitted planning applications after the WMS of 2015, it appeared that these were all submitted in neighbourhood areas where there was no support for onshore wind power development. Nonetheless, 2 out of the 3 applications already are permitted and the other one is applied in an area where it supposedly would be impossible to develop. These situations are now explained. First, the planning application for the repowering of the turbine in the St Erme neighbourhood area. The repowering of this turbine was permitted based on the added footnote in the revised NPPF of 2019 (R. Lacey, 2021, personal communication, 13 May). This planning application received its permission on December the 14th in 2018. This is earlier than the implementation of the revised NPPF of 2019, which is interesting. The other two planning applications were no resubmissions. Nonetheless, one of them is already permitted. This relates to the CEDPD and Policies Map that are currently being developed by Cornwall Council. After its implementation the permitting of these two planning applications is logical. Right now, it is an interesting situation seeing that the CEDPD is not officially adopted yet but still permission is granted based on this document. This might relate to Cornwall Council stating in relation to the footnote in the NPPF of 2019 that this footnote “also allows wind turbines to be permitted without being identified in the 49 development plan and the interpretation of this allowance can be reasonably broad as established in subsequent case law.” (R. Lacey, 2021, personal communication, 13 May).

VI.IV. Limitations

There are some limitations to the conclusions that arose from this research. First, the research was limited in its scope. Themes arising from the ceremonial county of Cornwall may not necessarily be applicable to all other locations. Also, the given weights to different themes by neighbourhoods in their decision-making can be different for different areas. Even though it was tried to limit this deviation by looking at all neighbourhoods in the complete ceremonial county, it might be that there are neighbourhood specific themes and issues. This is common for explorative research, seeing as this type of research attempts to sketch a first broad picture of the issues that is being investigated (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Secondly, interpretation of the laws and requirements mentioned in the WMS and NPPF can be conflicting. For example, Cornwall Council stated in relation to the footnote in the NPPF of 2019, that “This also allows wind turbines to be permitted without being identified in the development plan and the interpretation of this allowance can be reasonably broad as established in subsequent case law.” (R. Lacey, 2021, personal communication, 13 May). The researcher does not directly interpretate this requirement in the same way. Hence, some assumptions made in this research may change slightly after further clarification, however this will most probably not change the concluding remarks of this research. Finally, by taking pre-adoption plans into account the results may have been skewed to some extent. It is not ensured that these plans will pass the examination or referendum in their current form. Hence, the content of these plans on onshore wind power development may not be accepted by the community. This means that certain stances on such development may turn out to be different in their final adopted form compared to their proposed form. The reason for taking these pre-adoption plans into account was to give a complete overview of the current progress of neighbourhood planning. It was assumed that even though these pre- adoption plans may change after examination or a referendum, the general stance on matters such as onshore wind power development should not change drastically.

VII. CONCLUSION

VII.I. Concluding Remarks

The aim of this research was to explore the effects of ‘going local’, in the form of the WMS of 2015 in England, during the planning process for onshore wind power development, as well as investigating what aspects play a role during the decision-making process of neighbourhoods or local authorities for onshore wind power development. To do so, the following research questions were posed:

The first sub question “What is the stance of the local and neighbourhood planning documents in the administrative county of Cornwall on onshore wind power development?” is straightforward to answer. Of the 57 planning documents, 14 have a positive stance on onshore wind power development. For the second sub question, “How do the local and neighbourhood planning documents in the administrative county of Cornwall comply with the requirements of the WMS, HCWS42, for potentially permitting onshore wind power development?”, it appears that there are 4 planning documents that comply with the WMS by clearly allocating suitable areas for onshore wind power development. The CEDPD, that is currently under development, may be added to this number, after its examination, referendum, and official adoption. 51

The final sub question of the first research question, “How did the WMS, HCWS42, affect planning applications for onshore wind power development in the administrative county of Cornwall?”, can be answered by saying that since the WMS of 2015, the planning applications for onshore wind power development in Cornwall reduced from 15 to 3 in the 5 years before and after the WMS. It also appears that the size of the proposed wind farms reduced to single turbines since the WMS in 2015. All this together paints a picture that can answer the first overarching research question “How does the WMS, HCWS42, affect onshore wind power development in the administrative county of Cornwall?”. It appears that since the WMS of 2015, the possibilities for onshore wind power development in Cornwall have become limited in terms of locations and size. This has also been approved by Cornwall Council in the declaration of a Climate Emergency by Cornwall Council in 2019. The second research question, “What aspects play a role in the decision-making process of neighbourhoods and local authorities in the administrative county of Cornwall for onshore wind power development in their areas?”, refers to the over-arching aspects that have been discussed in chapter VI. The over-arching aspects that influence decision-making of the neighbourhoods and local authorities on onshore wind power development are i) benefits for the neighbourhood, ii) negative impacts on the neighbourhood area, iii) socio-political attitude, and iv) conditions set by the neighbourhoods or local authorities. These aspects correspond with mentioned difficulties and shortcomings of ‘going local’ described in literature. The research gap described in Chapter II of this report stated that literature is conflicting on the benefits and drawbacks of ‘going local’. It appeared after this research that ‘going local’ in an NPPF is mainly a drawback for onshore wind power development. The investigated neighbourhoods mostly reject this type of development in their areas, even though they do support renewable energy sources and want to contribute to a sustainable transition. The way ‘going local’ was described in the planning process as a beneficial factor for a successful development process appeared to be not as applicable on neighbourhood planning, as was thought at the start of the research. Neighbourhood planning’s bottom-up approach seems to be more of a reaction to the top-down corporatists elite based decision-making process rather than a switch to an inclusive collaborative approach, which was described in literature as beneficial for a successful implementation of onshore wind power.

VII.II. Future Implications and Research

If the UK government wants to make use of onshore wind power development to reach their climate goals, the main takeaway of this research is to reconsider the planning procedures for onshore wind power development that are currently in place for England. It is believed to be a good thing to include residents in the planning process, however, as can be concluded from this investigation, this will limit the possibilities of onshore wind power development to a significant extent, for example by excluding any possibilities for large-scale onshore wind power development. Further research on the mentioned aspects and factors may result in more detailed information on important factors during the planning process. This may help to come up with a reformed planning system whereby there is more inclusion of the local level during the planning process, without completely shutting down any possibilities of onshore wind power development. In this reformed planning system several factors are important to consider. It appeared from this research that the progress of neighbourhood planning is limited and that the approach of the NPPF is formulated in a negative way – no development is possible unless stated otherwise. By switching this around and giving the neighbourhoods the opportunity to reject the development, but allowing any development if not stated otherwise, the lack of progress is not a problem anymore. More research will be necessary to explore the impacts of such a change, but at least the progress problem in neighbourhood planning can be solved from a development point of view. Aside from this it is believed to be important that local communities are taken in consideration during the planning process of onshore wind power development to prevent opposition. Giving them a say in this process is hence highly recommended. The extent of this power depends on the wishes of the government. In an ideal way, they would be included in the decision-making process as much as possible, like is happening in the neighbourhood planning process currently. However, as this research shows, there are certain limitations to this approach. Hence, this results in a political discussion. In most countries, the local communities are not included in the planning process to the extent as this is being done in England. This can benefit onshore wind power development but at what cost. If one wants to aim for a situation wherein these communities are included and there is still onshore wind power development, the necessary arising benefits of such development for local communities should be investigated in more detail. This relates to the second planning problem described 53 by Khan (2003) which talks about the benefits of renewable energy sources on a national level but the negative impacts on a local level. This problem can be mitigated by either giving more benefits to the local level or reducing the local negative impacts. The potential benefits for local communities arriving from this research are related to an internal motivation of neighbourhoods to contribute to sustainability, or to economic benefits for the area. By increasing the community benefits in one of the five ways that were described in the section V.III. Neighbourhoods with a Positive Stance on Onshore Wind Power Development That Clearly Allocated Suitable , the perceived benefits for the neighbourhoods may be increased to a point whereby they alone or together with a potential increase in sustainable ambitions can start outweighing the negative impacts on the neighbourhood area. The question here arises whether it is possible for wind power developers to grant the level of community benefits that are required to reach this point. If the government wants to support onshore wind power development, they may need to join in on this process by granting benefits to neighbourhoods who support onshore wind power development. The extent of these benefits is difficult to assess. Should they be granted to just the landowners? Or should people around the turbines in a range of a certain number of kilometres also be included? And what about people who went to a certain forest to enjoy the quietness and serenity of nature that are now greeted by disturbing wind turbines? More research would have to be conducted to investigate the possibilities for community benefits and to assess the extent in which these can influence the decision-making of the neighbourhoods on onshore wind power development. More research can also come up with new potential benefit schemes of onshore wind power development for neighbourhoods. Another approach could be to mitigate the negative impacts that were mentioned in the planning documents in this research. Reducing noise impacts and visual impacts with newly designed blades or painted turbines, for example, can lead to lower negative impacts and potentially more support for onshore wind power development. To conclude, the current NPPF and design of neighbourhood planning in relation to onshore wind power development in England seems to limit the possibilities for such development to a high extent. Rethinking this design may be beneficial. By switching the situation around and permitting onshore wind power development unless stated otherwise in local or neighbourhood planning documents, the current lack of progress in the development of these plans may be mitigated. In a revamped NPPF it is advised to expand the current bottom-up exclusive process to an inclusive process, which may benefit the success rate and possibilities of onshore wind power development projects. In addition to this, further 54 innovations to reduce the negative impacts of such projects may lead to increased support for them. Finally, by increasing the potential benefits of onshore wind power development projects, local communities may decide to be more open for such development in their area.

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APPENDIX

The initial themes that appeared from the codes and their explanations are displayed in Table 6 below. Table 6. The sub-themes that arose from the codes and their explanations.

Sub-theme Explanation Economic benefits Economic benefits for the area Employment opportunities Job opportunities for local residents Accepting small scale or small Large scale wind farms are rejected, small scale may clusters / rejecting large scale be approved (limited number of turbines and limited height) Presence of AONB or Landscape The presence of classified Areas of Outstanding Character Areas Natural Beauty or Landscape Character Areas Negative visual impacts / Negative visual impacts and landscape character landscape character disturbance disturbance Negative impacts on amenities of Negative impacts on amenities of local residents, for local residents example in the form of electromagnetic interference, noise generation, overbearing visual impact, shadow flicker or vibration Negative impacts on public safety, Public safety, the safety of highways, and ensuring safety of highways and public that the public rights of way are not damaged rights of way Negative impacts on nature / Environmental impacts, i.e., impacts on the nature biodiversity and biodiversity Decommissioning plan A decommissioning plan must be developed Community benefits Community benefits in the form of for example 1) supplying of generating electricity to domestic, business, and other buildings in the neighbourhood to reduce energy consumption, 2) full or partly ownership by residents, business, or community associations, 3) community benefit fund, 4) fuel poverty mitigation scheme, 5) reduced electricity tariff rate 68

Negative impacts on (historic) Negative impacts on the historic character of the area character / heritage impacts or negative impacts on heritage sites Cumulative impacts Cumulative impacts that arise when individual wind turbines together lead to negative impacts Negative impacts on productive Loss of productive farmland farmland Maximising efficiency / It is demanded that resource use efficiency is maximising the use of the resource maximised Supporting sustainability / Promoting sustainability and renewable and low renewable and low carbon energy carbon energy generation as a driver for wind power generation / energy self-sufficiency development Public demand Public consultation shows direction Miscellaneous Miscellaneous (incl. tourism, scale of land, and historic events)

Following this, a thematic map was created. This map is visualized in Figure 15 below. 69

Figure 15. Thematic map